Earth and Space Science ESS1(5-8)POC-3 Explain how Earth events (abruptly and over time ) can bring about changes in Earth's surface: landforms, ocean floor, rock forms, or climate. ESS1(7-8) -3 Students demonstrate an understanding of processes and change over time within earth systems by... 3a) Evaluating slow processes e.g. seafloor spreading, mountain building to determine how the Earth has changed and will continue to change over time.
3b) Evaluating fast processes e.g. earthquakes to determine how the Earth has changed and will continue to change over time.
Learning Goals
Students will be able to glean information from their text books as well as from information on the U.S Geological Survey website to substantiate their claim that earthquakes occur predominately at fault lines near plate boundaries..(ESS1(7-8)-3A & 3B
Students will be able to differentiate between types of faults and identify which tectonic stress caused each of these faults.ESS1(7-8)-3A & 3B
Students will be able to identify changes to the surface of the earth and correlate the cause of these changes.(ESS1(7-8)-3A
Inquiry Practice
The students will engage in the compilation of data and unrelated information from disparate sources, theorize explanations for their observations, stop and think about the data, and arrive at a conclusion of whether or not their theory for their observations is plausible.
This is indicative of a scientist at work and play who takes the the time to Stop and Think before acting.
Informal assessment will be the creation of a graphic organizer which will be a placeholder for information students have uncovered from their various sources. The data that will be documented onto the Graphic Organizer ( GO ) will be gleaned from readings from their textbook, off of the web, and in teacher led discussions and teacher delivered presentations. Students will be able to review their GO during each phase of completion and take time to stop and think how this information is connected to earthquakes, change to earth's surface. and slow and fast processes. Students will then be instructed to use their graphic organizer as a primary study guide for the formal assessment (quiz).
I will be monitoring the completion of the graphic organizer and give each student a grade based on a rough percentage of completion. I will need to return the graphic organizer the next day.
B. Formal Assessment
A quiz with true and false statements, multiple choice questions and short answer questions, all based on information documented by students on their graphic organizers.
This series of classes over 5 days covers the second section of a four section chapter on earthquakes. In addition to having the class learn about earthquakes and their fundamental origins in faults, another goal was the introduction of the use of graphic organizers as an information placeholder which can easily be retrieved and utilized as a study guide. This was a first for many students in using graphic organizer as a study guide. Previous experience consisted primarily of outlining of textbook material with little use of graphics to make connections between pieces of information.
B. Analysis of Informal Assessment
Completion of GO
I initially told the class that the graphic organizer would serve two purposes. The first purpose was as a placeholder for information gleaned from classroom discussions and from assigned readings and vocabulary lists. The second purpose was using the GO as a study guide to study for the formal assessment. Since it was the first time the class was using a graphic organizer of this sort for these purposes, I told them that I would review and give them a classroom grade for the completion of the graphic organizer, then give them back to them to revise and then use as a study aid. It was simply graded by percentage of completion and turned over to them.
Depth of detail on the GO varied among students. Some simply copied the bare minimum of information that was placed on the chalkboard by myself. Other students added information that was generated by classroom discussion and still others added graphic drawings that represented information found in the textbook.
All students were encouraged to personalize their GO by using words, drawings or anything else to help them remember the information that they uncovered during this section.
C. Analysis of Formal Assessment
The class average for the quiz was 80. There were 7 of 19 grades over 90 and 5 grades below 70. The quiz grades seem to have a direct correlation to the GO grades. The 4 representative students grades - (GOgrade - Quiz grade) were (85 - 90), (70 - 63), (70 - 77), and (80 - 50). The quizzes were consistent in scores found in other assessments, both formal and informal. Students who seem to put the effort in completing homework and classwork as well as participating in classroom discussion showed consistently better grades in the formal assessments. Disaggregation of scores based on sex resulted in score of 81.1 for females and 79.2 for males.
Did informal assessment do what it was intended to do?
I think that the informal assessment was somewhat effective in being a study guide. I informally asked the students if they used it as a study guide and found that at least a third of the class did not study. I surmised that more emphasis was needed to attain this goal, possibly adding a small study practice time with coaching from the teacher on how to use it as a study guide.
The use of the GO as a placeholder was far more effective than study guide. Every student had something written on the GO, even if it was the bare minimum. I felt that at the least, every student was forced to pay attention and document some information. It helped a lot as a means to classroom management. Giving the students something on which to document classroom activity, as well as informing them that it would be collected and reviewed, did moderate classroom boredom.
In retrospect, I think more direct use of examples on my part might have been useful for many students. I did get 95% completion rate in the creation of the GO but I think that my easy grading rubric for the GO might have led to false sense of knowledge in some of the students.
Did it correlate with the formal assessment?
It certainly did. The grades on the quizzes were indicative of the effort each student placed on the completion of the GO.
How did the students perceive the GO activity? It also provided me with an example of a missed opportunity. If I would have been more experienced, I could have seen that the class as a whole did not get their heads around the concept of friction as a force. Their GOs as a whole used incomplete information in documenting friction, and few were able to answer the question on the quiz with the correct explanation. They misunderstood the textbook definition.
Did it challenge all students?
I think the informal assessment did challenge the class as a whole. They were required to spend 2 days documenting the information and as stated above it was an effective classroom management tool. These middleschoolers did seem to be more focused than when I stood there andlectured to them.
B. Reflections from Formal Assessment
As a whole my quiz did show me a few things. The first is that middle shool students do not like short answer questions where explanations are asked of them. They seemed to be spending a lot of time on the true and false questions as well as the multiple choice questions and then quickly going through the short answer questions. In retrospect, I should have prefaced the quiz with a summation of the relative importance of each section to the total grade. The three short answer questions comprised 45% of the quiz grade and many students simply did not answer some of these questions.
Secondly, I anticipated a greater percentage of the students would actually study. I was told that at this middle school, very little work is done by students at home, which explains the absence of grades for homework as documented in my classroom grades document.
Reflecting on differences between female and male student scores did not seem to highlight any gross differences. Girls average of 81.1 versus the boys average of 79.2 seemed to me to statistically even. However, I did notice that of four failing grades, only one was a girl.
Girls comprised 42% of the class grades but only 25% of failing grades. I can surmise that generally the girls generally did a little better than boys on this one test.
VI. Conclusions
Presently, most of my energy expended as a student teacher is directed to lesson plan development and my execution of that plan to the students. It is focused on the teaching part of the student/teacher relationship. I increasingly realize that I must also include some way of determining the level of understanding by the other participants of this interaction, namely the students. Waiting for the results gleaned from the formal assessments might help me make changes to my lesson plan next year when I teach this section again, but it does not help the current students. Mid-lesson informal assessment will help in this regard. Finding missed opportunities and providing immediate and timely remediation will help those kids as well as the next year's crop of students.
I also discovered that informal assessment is best done if it does not become an onerous task on the teacher. I am more likely to continue the practice if it can easily be integrated into my lesson. For example, will I have the time to correct and grade every graphic organizer for each student of each class. Don't think so. I might think about sampling only one class for each lesson and grade that sample, glean the needed informal assessment data to gauge effectiveness and make changes accordingly. Varying classes for this process and letting the students know that at any time I may collect classwork and give a grade will insure some level of completion.
In conclusion, I must simply not forget about informal and formal assessment as a basis in determining my effectiveness as a teacher. I must practice and include it in my initial teaching bag of skills that need development.
Formal and Informal Assessment of Student Learning
Name:Lionel Tessier
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
Formal Informal Assessments 2009
II. Description of Learning Goals
A. Informal Assessment
Earth and Space Science ESS1(5-8)POC-3 Explain how Earth events (abruptly and over time ) can bring about changes in Earth's surface: landforms, ocean floor, rock forms, or climate.ESS1(7-8) -3 Students demonstrate an understanding of processes and change over time within earth systems by...
3a) Evaluating slow processes e.g. seafloor spreading, mountain building to determine how the Earth has changed and will continue to change over time.
3b) Evaluating fast processes e.g. earthquakes to determine how the Earth has changed and will continue to change over time.
Learning Goals
- Students will be able to glean information from their text books as well as from information on the U.S Geological Survey website to substantiate their claim that earthquakes occur predominately at fault lines near plate boundaries..(ESS1(7-8)-3A & 3B
- Students will be able to differentiate between types of faults and identify which tectonic stress caused each of these faults.ESS1(7-8)-3A & 3B
- Students will be able to identify changes to the surface of the earth and correlate the cause of these changes.(ESS1(7-8)-3A
Inquiry PracticeThe students will engage in the compilation of data and unrelated information from disparate sources, theorize explanations for their observations, stop and think about the data, and arrive at a conclusion of whether or not their theory for their observations is plausible.
This is indicative of a scientist at work and play who takes the the time to Stop and Think before acting.
Informal assessment will be the creation of a graphic organizer which will be a placeholder for information students have uncovered from their various sources. The data that will be documented onto the Graphic Organizer ( GO ) will be gleaned from readings from their textbook, off of the web, and in teacher led discussions and teacher delivered presentations. Students will be able to review their GO during each phase of completion and take time to stop and think how this information is connected to earthquakes, change to earth's surface. and slow and fast processes. Students will then be instructed to use their graphic organizer as a primary study guide for the formal assessment (quiz).
I will be monitoring the completion of the graphic organizer and give each student a grade based on a rough percentage of completion. I will need to return the graphic organizer the next day.
B. Formal Assessment
A quiz with true and false statements, multiple choice questions and short answer questions, all based on information documented by students on their graphic organizers.III. Assessments
A. Description of Informal Assessment
B. Description of Formal Assessment
IV. Analysis
A. Description of Class Context
This series of classes over 5 days covers the second section of a four section chapter on earthquakes. In addition to having the class learn about earthquakes and their fundamental origins in faults, another goal was the introduction of the use of graphic organizers as an information placeholder which can easily be retrieved and utilized as a study guide. This was a first for many students in using graphic organizer as a study guide. Previous experience consisted primarily of outlining of textbook material with little use of graphics to make connections between pieces of information.B. Analysis of Informal Assessment
Completion of GOI initially told the class that the graphic organizer would serve two purposes. The first purpose was as a placeholder for information gleaned from classroom discussions and from assigned readings and vocabulary lists. The second purpose was using the GO as a study guide to study for the formal assessment. Since it was the first time the class was using a graphic organizer of this sort for these purposes, I told them that I would review and give them a classroom grade for the completion of the graphic organizer, then give them back to them to revise and then use as a study aid. It was simply graded by percentage of completion and turned over to them.
Depth of detail on the GO varied among students. Some simply copied the bare minimum of information that was placed on the chalkboard by myself. Other students added information that was generated by classroom discussion and still others added graphic drawings that represented information found in the textbook.
All students were encouraged to personalize their GO by using words, drawings or anything else to help them remember the information that they uncovered during this section.
C. Analysis of Formal Assessment
The class average for the quiz was 80. There were 7 of 19 grades over 90 and 5 grades below 70. The quiz grades seem to have a direct correlation to the GO grades. The 4 representative students grades - (GOgrade - Quiz grade) were (85 - 90), (70 - 63), (70 - 77), and (80 - 50). The quizzes were consistent in scores found in other assessments, both formal and informal. Students who seem to put the effort in completing homework and classwork as well as participating in classroom discussion showed consistently better grades in the formal assessments. Disaggregation of scores based on sex resulted in score of 81.1 for females and 79.2 for males.V. Commentary / Reflection
A. Reflections from Informal Assessment
Did informal assessment do what it was intended to do?I think that the informal assessment was somewhat effective in being a study guide. I informally asked the students if they used it as a study guide and found that at least a third of the class did not study. I surmised that more emphasis was needed to attain this goal, possibly adding a small study practice time with coaching from the teacher on how to use it as a study guide.
The use of the GO as a placeholder was far more effective than study guide. Every student had something written on the GO, even if it was the bare minimum. I felt that at the least, every student was forced to pay attention and document some information. It helped a lot as a means to classroom management. Giving the students something on which to document classroom activity, as well as informing them that it would be collected and reviewed, did moderate classroom boredom.
In retrospect, I think more direct use of examples on my part might have been useful for many students. I did get 95% completion rate in the creation of the GO but I think that my easy grading rubric for the GO might have led to false sense of knowledge in some of the students.
Did it correlate with the formal assessment?
It certainly did. The grades on the quizzes were indicative of the effort each student placed on the completion of the GO.
How did the students perceive the GO activity? It also provided me with an example of a missed opportunity. If I would have been more experienced, I could have seen that the class as a whole did not get their heads around the concept of friction as a force. Their GOs as a whole used incomplete information in documenting friction, and few were able to answer the question on the quiz with the correct explanation. They misunderstood the textbook definition.
Did it challenge all students?
I think the informal assessment did challenge the class as a whole. They were required to spend 2 days documenting the information and as stated above it was an effective classroom management tool. These middleschoolers did seem to be more focused than when I stood there andlectured to them.
B. Reflections from Formal Assessment
As a whole my quiz did show me a few things. The first is that middle shool students do not like short answer questions where explanations are asked of them. They seemed to be spending a lot of time on the true and false questions as well as the multiple choice questions and then quickly going through the short answer questions. In retrospect, I should have prefaced the quiz with a summation of the relative importance of each section to the total grade. The three short answer questions comprised 45% of the quiz grade and many students simply did not answer some of these questions.Secondly, I anticipated a greater percentage of the students would actually study. I was told that at this middle school, very little work is done by students at home, which explains the absence of grades for homework as documented in my classroom grades document.
Reflecting on differences between female and male student scores did not seem to highlight any gross differences. Girls average of 81.1 versus the boys average of 79.2 seemed to me to statistically even. However, I did notice that of four failing grades, only one was a girl.
Girls comprised 42% of the class grades but only 25% of failing grades. I can surmise that generally the girls generally did a little better than boys on this one test.
VI. Conclusions
Presently, most of my energy expended as a student teacher is directed to lesson plan development and my execution of that plan to the students. It is focused on the teaching part of the student/teacher relationship. I increasingly realize that I must also include some way of determining the level of understanding by the other participants of this interaction, namely the students. Waiting for the results gleaned from the formal assessments might help me make changes to my lesson plan next year when I teach this section again, but it does not help the current students. Mid-lesson informal assessment will help in this regard. Finding missed opportunities and providing immediate and timely remediation will help those kids as well as the next year's crop of students.I also discovered that informal assessment is best done if it does not become an onerous task on the teacher. I am more likely to continue the practice if it can easily be integrated into my lesson. For example, will I have the time to correct and grade every graphic organizer for each student of each class. Don't think so. I might think about sampling only one class for each lesson and grade that sample, glean the needed informal assessment data to gauge effectiveness and make changes accordingly. Varying classes for this process and letting the students know that at any time I may collect classwork and give a grade will insure some level of completion.
In conclusion, I must simply not forget about informal and formal assessment as a basis in determining my effectiveness as a teacher. I must practice and include it in my initial teaching bag of skills that need development.
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